Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services has invested over £1.5m ($1.9m) during the last year, to expand its sterile biologics manufacturing facility in Scotland, UK by 25%.
The company has doubled its Stirling site with an additional 8,000 sq ft of office space to house the firm’s administrative, management and operational teams while also facilitating the expansion of its existing manufacturing space and its supporting services infrastructure, it said in a press release Tuesday.
The new operational area also provides additional capacity for GMP-compliant manufacturing services for improved supply chain management including additional temperature controlled storage and the company’s first automated labelling and packaging equipment.
Colin MacKay, CEO at Symbiosis said: “This represents another exciting step for Symbiosis which allows the company to continue to leverage its expertise in small scale clinical and commercial sterile manufacturing to drive future growth. The additional space has allowed us to increase our headcount from 60 to 90 employees in line with both customer demand and our ongoing growth strategy.
MacKay said that the investment in the new facility is driven by the significant organic growth of the company as a result of its continued success in the niche market of sterile manufacturing of advanced therapeutic medicinal products (ATMPs) such as viral vector and other biopharmaceuticals – its customer base has grown by more than 25% in 2019 alone.
The expanded facility, which was recently completed and is now fully operational, has been part-funded by a successful Innovate UK grant from the UK Government aimed directly at strengthening the UK’s viral vector biopharmaceutical drug development and manufacturing supply chain. The continued investment and demand for services is estimated to increase output by another 25-30% in 2020, the company said in the press release.